SENATORS LED BY HELMS MEET WITH MEXICAN LEADER

MEXICO CITY, April 16 -- Jesse Helms, who is the powerful chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who has embodied the tensions and
distrust that have long divided the United States from Mexico, began a
good-will visit here today aimed at demonstrating support for this
country's new government.

At the start of the three-day visit, Mr. Helms, Republican of North
Carolina, and other members of his panel met privately with President
Vicente Fox.

The delegation is to meet several high-level Mexican officials on Tuesday.
At the end of the trip, they will meet members of the Mexican Senate's
Foreign Relations Commission. That will be the first time, Mr. Helms has
said, that members of a United States congressional committee hold an
official meeting on foreign soil with foreign counterparts.

American and Mexican officials have said they do not expect initiatives to
be announced as a result of the meetings. Participants have expressed hope
that the visit will be the start of new relationships between legislators.

But across this country, the visit is being viewed as a stunning example of
how international attitudes toward Mexico have changed since July, when Mr.
Fox became the first opposition politician in 71 years to win the
presidency away from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

For much of Mr. Helms's 27 years in office, he has been a staunch critic of
Mexico. He had dismissed its efforts to fight drug traffic as inadequate,
and he had accused the government of corruption. Since Mr. Fox's election,
however, Mr. Helms's views have softened.

On his visit, he is widely expected to express support for policies and
programs he had long opposed, including expanding the North American Free
Trade Agreement, suspending the United States program to certify that
countries are cooperating in fighting the drug trade and establishing new
guest worker programs.

The population of Mexican workers in Mr. Helms' home state has surged in
recent years, and growers in North Carolina are among the most vocal
advocates for expanding guest worker programs.

In a newspaper column two months ago in a Mexican daily, Reforma, Mr. Helms
said his attitudes had never been anti-Mexico, but rather opposed to the
policies of the long-governing party, the PRI. He urged officials in both
countries to "set their eyes on the future, not the past."

"Mexico and the United States should not only be good neighbors," the
senator wrote, "they should be better partners and friends. We have an
opportunity to build that kind of relationship with the election of our new
presidents. All the members of the U.S. Senate — from the left, the right
and center — want to help them be successful."

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a political expert at the Autonomous
Technological Institute of Mexico, said Mr. Helms's positions on Mexico had
"turned 180 degrees."

Although there are concerns that some Mexican legislators would take the
opportunity of Mr. Helms's visit to denounce his past criticisms, Mr.
Fernandez urged the Mexican Congress to put aside past rancor and take
advantage of Mr. Helms's new fondness.

"In the last two decades, Helms has been considered a kind of wall of
contention that blocked any attempts at improving cooperation between both
nations," Mr. Fernandez said. "Now, that wall of contention has become one
of the most attentive, most powerful listeners we have in Washington."

Other senators on the visit include Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of
Delaware, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, John Ensign of Nevada and
Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, all Republicans.